RE: [tlug] jp encoding

[Jim Breen <jwb@example.com>]

[Legend (RE: [tlug] jp encoding) writes:]
>> >
JB > HTML can be in whatever coding you like, and AFAIK JSP is the same.
JB > Provided you state the coding correctly in the pages, the browsers
JB > should use it. The only case I know where Shit-JIS is mandatory is
JB > for the (stupid, stupid) microbrowsers in Japanese cellphones.
>> 
>> Yes, I'm aware of that. One just has to specify
>> the encoding in the meta tag. And it seems that
>> new browsers these days can detect the encoding
>> without the tag anyway.

Well, often they will use the default. Software tends to be configured to
use a default appropriate to the country, which means ISO-8859-1 for "the
West". Usually you have to turn on autodetect and specify a language as
it's terrible trying to sort out Japanese EUC, Chinese EUC and Korean EUC
from the content.

>> However, we all know that the most used browser is
>> IE on Windows platform. 

Hmmm. Non sequiteur alert.....

>> For that reason, in Japan,
>> it is pretty much like an industry-standard (AFAIK)
>> to use sjis in HTML and JSP, and EUC in Servlet, if
>> you were developing on Unix platform.

IE is not the reason that Shit_JIS is commonly used in Japan. Shit_JIS
usage was endemic on Windblows system before IE appeared. It was the
native code system of Japonified Windblows software - after all Macrosloth
invented it. For that reason Windblows-produced HTML tended to be in HTML
even in the days when Mosaic and Netscape were the browser choices.

And it's not "an industry-standard", any more than driving a Toyota is an
industry standard. The *standard* is to use meta tags. A standard mostly
honoured in the breach.

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen  [j.breen@example.com  http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/]
Computer Science & Software Engineering,                Tel: +61 3 9905 3298
P.O Box 26, Monash University,                          Fax: +61 3 9905 5146
Clayton VIC 3800, Australia      ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学